While Potential Tropical Cyclone 8 struggled to make a name for itself along the southeastern U.S. coast on Monday, it brought tropical storm-like weather to the North Carolina coast. Satellite imagery and reconnaissance flights show that PTC 8 is entangled with a persistent front that stretches the circulation and prevents it from becoming a distinct, symmetrical low.
As of 11 a.m. ET, PTC 8's elongated, ill-defined center was located nearly 100 miles east of Charleston, South Carolina, moving north-northwest at 5 mph. In fact, all of PTC 8's stronger shower and thunderstorm activity (convection) is concentrated in a single area near the eastern North Carolina coast north of the center and farther offshore. With maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, PTC 8 is strong enough to become a tropical or subtropical storm. However, because PTC 8 is structured more like a frontal or coastal storm than a nonfrontal cyclone, the National Hurricane Center has not yet named it. The likelihood that PTC 8 will make landfall in South Carolina Monday night but not become tropical or subtropical Storm Helen is increasing.
Regardless of the status of PTC 8, its presence was felt across the Carolinas Monday, especially on the north side of the system, along the southern North Carolina coast from Wilmington to Cape Fear. A small low pressure center and a band of severe thunderstorms moved inland near Wilmington at noon, with wind gusts reaching 45 mph reported at 8:52 a.m. ET.
https://twitter.com/NWSWilmingtonNC/status/1835703106681909384
As PTC 8 makes landfall and weakens, the heaviest rainfall and strongest winds will move through the region early Tuesday, with rainfall totals of 6 to 8 inches possible in some areas. A series of totals well over 10 inches recorded at a weather station on Bald Head Island, an island jutting into the Atlantic south of Wilmington, suggested localized amounts could be higher.
As of noon ET Monday, temperatures at the North Carolina Climate Services Agency's Bald Head Island Club mesonet station had risen 15.03 inches in the past 24 hours. Inland, the CoCoRaHS volunteer observing network's highest two-day rainfall totals as of Monday morning included 3.61 inches near Morehead City, N.C., and 3.5 inches northeast of Wilmington. Heavy rainfall combined with storm surge (see below) caused more than three feet of flooding in Carolina Beach, North Carolina.
PTC 8 No major inland flooding is expected as flows are near normal in eastern North Carolina, but locally heavy rains may cause some flash flooding.
A PTC Category 8 storm surge swept the coast Sunday and Monday. Moderate flooding was reported in Charleston Harbor at high tide Sunday afternoon, and minor flooding will occur or be expected Monday afternoon and evening along the coast from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to Beaufort, North Carolina. Peak storm surge could produce one to three feet of flooding in the storm surge warning area, which extends from the South Santee River in South Carolina to Oregon Inlet in North Carolina and includes the southeastern Pamlico, Pongo, and Neuse rivers. Inland areas of North Carolina along the River and Bay Rivers.
Mild to moderate coastal flooding is still possible north of the mid-Atlantic coast over the next few days as PTC 8 moves inland and persistent onshore currents combine with astronomical high tides.
Impressive Gordon continues as tropical depression;Anything else happening in the Atlantic this week?
Tropical Depression Gordon was downgraded from minimum tropical storm status on Sunday and is now struggling to survive in the remote eastern tropical Atlantic. A jagged area of convection remains east of Gordon's low-level center at 11 a.m. ET Monday, with partial exposure at times. With maximum sustained winds of 35 mph, Gordon was located nearly 1,000 miles east of the Leeward Islands, moving west at 7 mph. An approaching upper-level trough will begin to drag Gordon northward by midweek, where it could regain tropical storm strength, but Gordon does not pose a risk to land areas.
No new systems of concern appear to develop in the Atlantic over the next seven days, according to the National Hurricane Center's Tropical Weather Outlook, released at 2 p.m. Monday. On average, the seventh, eighth, and ninth named storms over the past few decades (1991-2020) have all formed before September 22, so without the eighth storm (assuming PTC 8 does not Helen), could appear next Sunday and put the Atlantic Ocean well behind normal weather speeds. As of Sunday, Sept. 15, live statistics from Colorado State University show the 2024 hurricane season also lags behind 1991-2020 in hurricane days (13.25, average 15.2) and cumulative cyclone energy (61 days, average 71.9) . This week's activity wasn't enough to prevent the 2024 Atlantic season from falling further behind on these metrics — admittedly, a welcome development for coastal residents, but also considering the multiple forecasts for an unusually active 2024 Atlantic season. A striking and puzzling thing.
Beyond this week, the GFS and European ensemble models are looking at the possibility of a system developing in the western Caribbean and moving north into the Gulf of Mexico late next week. However, it's too early to be confident in any details.
Jeff Masters contributed to this article.
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